This invention relates to an improved electric connector assembly for making rapid electrical connections of insulated wires to a plurality of conductors on a printed circuit board or the like.
Various control devices such as the thermostat control modules of heat pump and furnace equipment commonly employ printed circuit boards provided with terminal blocks for connection to external insulated wires by installers of the equipment. With terminal blocks of the conventional type, the end of each wire must be stripped of insulation and bent in a loop before it is clamped by the head of a binding screw. Because of the time consumed and resulting cost in making such wire connections, it would be advantageous to employ a low cost connector assembly readily mountable upon a printed circuit board and suitable for making rapid electric connections to unstripped insulated wires.
A variety of insulation piercing electric terminals which can be connected to an insulated wire without stripping of the wire insulation are known. One type of insulation piercing terminal shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,012,219, 3,380,013, 3,804,971, 4,138,184, 4,171,858 and 4,191,442 comprises at least one thin slotted plate which is forced through the wire insulation into conductive engagement with the core of the wire. Although the connector assemblies disclosed in the foregoing patents are not particularly suited for use with a printed circuit board, various other types of connector assemblies which may be mounted on a printed circuit board or the like are known as shown by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,391,383, 3,680,035, 3,720,907, 3,958,857, 3,963,319, 4,025,142 and 4,293,177. U.S. Pat. No. 3,789,344 as well as the previously cited U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,391,383, 3,680,035 and 4,135,184 each discloses a connector body of the clamshell type wherein a housing and a cover are hinged together and include latch means for holding the cover closed. A continuous strip of interconnected connector housing blocks which may be divided into smaller segments if desired are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,931,006 and 3,082,397.